HEX Combines MMOs & Trading Card Games

Slycne

Tank Ninja
Feb 19, 2006
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HEX Combines MMOs & Trading Card Games

Cryptozoic is trying to find the chocolate and peanut butter mixture for online trading card games.

There's seemingly been a sudden uptick in online trading card games lately. A few weeks back during PAX East , Blizzard announced Kickstarter [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122852-Blizzard-Unleashes-Fancy-Free-to-Play-Collectible-Card-Game] to push their TCG MMO hybrid HEX: Shards of Fate to completion. I got a chance to talk to Cory Jones, the President and Head of Creative at Cryptozoic about some of the details.

Akin to the classic Reese's candy, HEX aims to combine two separate and successful genres in trading card games and massively multiplayer online games. Cryptozoic wanted to craft a game that could crossover the two heavily community and social based experiences. In many ways going to your friend's house or your local game shop to play cards is similar to logging in to your favorite MMO and interacting with your friends and guildmates there. For anyone that's been involved in these kind of hobbies, it can often become an issue for players to continue to make it out to their store's events or collect groups of friends together to play as their life styles change, but the hope is that HEX could help alleviate those problems because the online nature will keep you playing and connected with friends.

A single player and PVE experience will also be a part of the game for those who would rather not jump straight into tournaments or would like to work together to conquer some of the raid encounters. The first thing you need to do is create a character or in this case a champion. Drawing from the MMO side, your champion has race, class, talents trees and all the other normal trimming you might expect in a fantasy MMO, and your abilities will have different passive and active effects during the card game portion itself. From the TCG side though, during PVE play you might be required to play with special decks or a character related to the quest might appear in your deck.

What's really neat is how Cryptozoic is taking advantage of the medium for HEX beyond just spells effects and graphics. In a traditional paper trading card game, a card will usually have a static graphic on the back and a front featuring various rules text, information and art for that card. Because HEX is purely online and digital, their cards are not quite so limited. For instance, cards can be socketed with equipment and gems to enhance their effects or a card might transform multiple times during the course of a match. Every card also features a doubleback, which retains and tracks a bunch of statistics of your use of that card. Accomplishing various achievements with that card will be how you unlock alternative art and foil forms, and any trophies you won with the card in your deck will be permanently tagged to the card itself, making it more valuable should you choose to part with it. Likewise, this opens up the game design space for interactions that might normally be problematic in a paper game, like playing a card that places a booby trap card into someone's deck.

The game itself will be pretty easy to pick up for anyone that's played other trading card games. Players will draw a hand of seven cards and rotate turns playing various troop, action, constant or artifact cards with their resources. When you play a resource you'll also gain a charge point, which are what fuel your champion's special abilities. These special abilities are based on your classes and talents, and they can do anything from give all your troops flight or create a new elemental troop on the field. So building a killer deck extends beyond just the cards themselves.

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HEX will be free-to-play, with a free starter deck and all the PVE content and cards are available to unlock. If you want to branch out or build a collection more quickly, a prebuilt starter deck will cost $10 and a pack of cards will be $2. A big draw however will be PVP side with all the various tournaments and queues available from booster drafts, where packs get passed around as players choose a single card to try and craft the best deck possible, to constructed tournaments where take your latest brew against other players.

Personally, I've been a big fan of games like Magic: The Gathering for quite some time. I have even been playing recently on the MtG: Online client, but I have to say that HEX has me excited. I like the direction that Cryptozoic is going with really taking advantage of the digital nature of their game. It might not fully replace the experience of sitting around a table with friends, but it could find a place along side that or fill in the times when getting out to my local gaming shop proves problematic, like when I want to draft at 2:00 am.




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Leemaster777

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Feb 25, 2010
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Hmm... I'll have to keep an eye on this.

A card game MMO seems like an entirely logical combination. And as stated, making it purely digital opens up alot of possibilities that would otherwise be difficult to manage in a purely paper-based card game.

Color me intrigued, if nothing else.
 

SageRuffin

M-f-ing Jedi Master
Dec 19, 2009
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Hmm... this looks a little too much like Magic, but I'll keep an eye on it and see what's good in the future.

Until then, more Scarlet Blade.
 

Staskala

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Sep 28, 2010
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There were a couple of games which did similar things and were so popular with it I don't even remember their names.
Combining MMOs with trading card or monster training games sounds great on paper but has never quite worked out so far.
 

BlindTom

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Aug 8, 2008
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I desperately want a Netrunner MMO. The asymetric gameplay already facilitates differentiation between attack and defence, not to mention things like class specialisations.

I really want to hire runners to smash the competition from behind my mountains of bioroid ICE.
 

bliebblob

Plushy wrangler, die-curious
Sep 9, 2009
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So while bioware was busily making KotOR online these guys were making pazaak online? Clever girl...
 

Alfador_VII

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Nov 2, 2009
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I don't like the way the Kickstarter page opens with a flat-out lie.

"From the creators of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game..."

No they're not. Upper Deck Entertainment created the WoW TCG, then 5 years later lost the license and Cryptozoic was given it.
 

Slash2x

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Dec 7, 2009
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Ok I have read the story twice and it still has not said the portion I am really looking for.... Will you be able to trade cards with other players??? I love that about TRADING card games, but I have yet to play one online that lets you do the same.

Edit from the kickstarter.... Eh they have an auction house for trading......... Nothing about trading with people you know....
 

Slycne

Tank Ninja
Feb 19, 2006
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slash2x said:
Ok I have read the story twice and it still has not said the portion I am really looking for.... Will you be able to trade cards with other players??? I love that about TRADING card games, but I have yet to play one online that lets you do the same.

Edit from the kickstarter.... Eh they have an auction house for trading......... Nothing about trading with people you know....
Sorry couldn't fit every last detail from the interview, but one of the things we did talk about was guild banks. So yes you can trade or loan out cards and decks with your friends and guildmates.
 

Slash2x

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Dec 7, 2009
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Slycne said:
slash2x said:
Ok I have read the story twice and it still has not said the portion I am really looking for.... Will you be able to trade cards with other players??? I love that about TRADING card games, but I have yet to play one online that lets you do the same.

Edit from the kickstarter.... Eh they have an auction house for trading......... Nothing about trading with people you know....
Sorry couldn't fit every last detail from the interview, but one of the things we did talk about was guild banks. So yes you can trade or loan out cards and decks with your friends and guildmates.
OH NICE! NOW they get a



Gonna go throw some money at the kickstarter now. I have been looking for a game that lets you trade properly for a long time now. I regularly play with a group of about 10 people and we have all moved apart over the years so this will really help us play more often

Thank you.
 

tautologico

e^(i * pi) + 1 = 0
Apr 5, 2010
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Alfador_VII said:
I don't like the way the Kickstarter page opens with a flat-out lie.

"From the creators of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game..."

No they're not. Upper Deck Entertainment created the WoW TCG, then 5 years later lost the license and Cryptozoic was given it.
I think the president of Cryptozoic worked at Upper Deck and was responsible for the design of the WoW TCG, probably he later decided to split and create his own company. In this case it's far from a lie, it's indeed from the same people who created the WoW TCG.